My Tax Dollars At Work: WTH?

As I was riding my bike down the road this morning, a town truck slowly passed by me. It had the town seal painted on its doors, and the words WASTE WATER DEPT. printed prominently around it.

And I thought, ”What a crazy way to spend town money!”

Sometimes The Old Ways Are The Best To Catch A Nice Trout

I should have listened to Eve Moneypenny:

If you've read the post below about Czech nymphing, you’ll know that I’m intrigued by that technique, and have made several initial forays using it on my home waters. I decided the other day to fish the same quarter mile twice, once nymphing, once resorting to my good old dry flies. I had no luck with the nymphs. So I went back to the car and switched rods to the one rigged with a #16 Ausable Wulff. In a short run of nicely rippled water, I took this stream-bred 12” rainbow.

I’m keeping the 8’ 6” rod rigged for Czech nymphing. But when the water is too deep or too far away for dry flies, I’ll return to some really old ways and toss a 1/8 oz. Panther Martin out there with a 6’ ultralight spinning rig.

There! I’ve said it, and it feels GOOD. Fly fishing purists, including bobber fanciers nymph fishermen, should feel free to fall onto their fainting couches.

Freshly Killed Wild Trout Pan Fried In Butter Are Really Tasty!

If you’ve read any of the fishing entries below, you know I love to cast flies to stream-bred trout. You’ll find no mention of trolling. So please accept my apologies for the wording of this post’s title if you’ve arrived here in high dudgeon with blood in your eye.

I released the first trout I ever caught, in 1962. The site was the Cohocton River near Atlanta, and the fish was maybe 5” long. When I told my mentor, he was horrified: you threw back perfectly good breakfast food? The 13 year old who tossed that fish back was not clever enough to have invented “catch and release,” so the conflict between the historical “let’s catch a few fish to eat” and the new fangled “a wild trout is too precious to be caught just once” must already have been splashed all across the sportsmen’s magazines of the times.

I still catch a lot of 4” and 5” trout in my home water. I’m not a fisheries biologist, so I don’t know whether these small fish are all that’s left after “meat fishermen” have taken all the 9”ers, or if, on the other hand, these fish can’t get any bigger because they’ve got too many mouths for not enough food. I repeat: I don’t know.

But I think it’s a good question that deserves a well researched answer.

So I was interested to read a meditation on this subject in the back-page article of the Spring, 2018 TU magazine. The piece, which you can read here, is titled “Trout” It Was ‘What’s for Dinner!’,” written by Paul Bruun. Here’s how it opens:

“‘OMG, those guys are keeping a fish!’ chimed the lady in the passing driftboat. ‘What are we going to do about it?’ she wailed.

Despite current incendiary mores toward this once normal but now frowned-upon practice, ….”

Bruun reminisces from there in a warmly nostalgic way, thus guaranteeing his vilification in the Twitterverse and a dearth of Christmas cards from TU members.

For a deeper dive into wild trout management, take a look at “Lost in the Driftless” by Tim Traver. After not so many pages you — like me — will probably get fired up to buy a half dozen Cress Bugs and head for the streams of SW Wisconsin. But “Lost” is not a travelogue. Traver frames his themes around the career of Roger Kerr, a retired Wisconsin county fish manager who has strong opinions about trout fishing. Depending on whom Traver was interviewing at the moment, Kerr is either Gabriel or Lucifer. If you’re like me, you tend to view trout management in Wisconsin by TU apartment dwellers in Manhattan with a cocked eyebrow. But Traver does a good job of reporting instead of lobbying, and the book is a tasty if complicated intellectual chew.

I’ll close this entry with a question about Wulff’s dictum. Please understand that Wulff was a much more skilled fly fisherman and pilot than I am, and I greatly admire his body of work. But still, I wonder whether a few 5” trout that a youngster has caught, maybe on her initial outing, are really fish that’re too precious to be caught just once?

WTH? What A Wreck! Made A Trek To Check Czech Nymphing

After spending too many unproductive hours last summer exclusively fishing dry flies, I resolved over the winter to learn more about nymph fishing. I recalled reading something from Joe Humphreys years ago to the effect that a man could easily fish out a section of a good trout stream just nymphing (obviously that was many years ago.) I don’t mean to fish any creek out, even figuratively. But fishing where the fish mostly are instead of where I want them to be just makes sense.

So I watched lots of internet videos of nymph fishing. “Czech nymphing” seems to be the hot item these days. So I bought a neon colored leader section, tied a tippet beneath it and bent another tippet onto that such that I could add a dropper to the trimmed tag end. With a split shot a bit ahead of the bugs, I was ready to go!

For some reason, the videos do not show how to remove one or both bugs from budding willow trees; or how to keep the bugs and split shot from balling up into one hellacious mess; or how to keep one of both bugs from hooking your boots, or your fingers, or your hat; or how to keep your scant bit of dangling fly line from sliding back down your fly rod’s guides and getting tangled into the brush at your feet.

My inaugural nymphing outing wasn’t a complete disaster though. I enjoyed a terrific double-decker of Perry’s Ice Cream on the drive home. One scoop was Caramel Praline Turtle, and the other was Sponge Candy. Yummers!

I made a few notes to make the next trip simpler and hopefully more productive as I get the hang of this new thing. Here’s what I’ll do next time:

• I’ll use a leader that’s shorter than my 8’ 6” rod;

• I think I’ll try fishing with a 7’ leader as a beginner. I’ll trim a new leader to 5’ 6” and tie on an 18” tippet. I’ll tie on a single unweighted nymph, probably something familiar like a Hare’s Ear. And I’ll pinch on a split shot of appropriate size just above the knot securing the tippet;

• I customarily walk a half mile or so downstream from my car and then fish my dries upstream back to the car. To learn how best to fish nymphs, I think I’ll walk downstream from the car for about half of my time, then fish my nymph back upstream. In this way I hope to learn which attack plan works better for me;

• I’ll choose for my nymphing classroom a stretch of water that has lots of pocket water and short runs rather than long stretches of shallow riffles interspersed with gigantic pools; and finally

• the Sponge Candy was specially tasty, so I’ll go with it for both scoops.

Fishing jokes from Bible stories

North Country Grouse Roosting in the Snow

I was after snowshoe hares with my beagle Jupp back in 1983 behind my father-in-law’s place north of Malone, NY on a sunny but cold day in January. “Cold” in the St. Lawrence Valley frequently means daytime highs in the single digits with well-below 0°F temperatures at night.

Ruffed grouse, or “partridge” as we call them in the North Country, long ago adapted to surviving in frigid weather by burrowing into the snow. Back in 1983, I hadn’t learned about this behavior. I was wearing old-fashioned ash and rawhide snowshoes on this hunt, and, standing still for a moment, was straining to hear beagle music from Jupp who was trailing out of sight. Suddenly, literally out of nowhere, a partridge erupted from the snow just inches in front of my ‘shoes. I was so shook up by the feathered missile launch that I took a tumble a$$ over teacup. Regaining your footing after flopping into 3 feet of fluffy snow with two 3’ snowshoes twisted underneath you is a time consuming jiu jitsu match in which you paradoxically dig yourself deeper into the powder with every clawing effort to extricate yourself. In the future I’ll leave the deep powder to the grouse.

Here’s a photo of a snow roosting partridge, and two short video clips of grouse flushing.

Here's one

Here's another

Finally! A Recipe For Tender Crockpot Pheasant

When I traded bunny chasing with beagles for bird chasing with flushing spaniels 25 years ago, I was certain that grouse would forever be my number one target, with woodcock filling in the occasional gap. After all, we were never surprised to flush a partridge or two by accident when hunting snowshoe hares on my father-in-law’s and others’ private land near Malone, NY.

This accounts for my unrealistically hopeful expectation that I’d be finding just as many grouse forevermore on public land south of Buffalo.

After driving 80 white-knuckled miles to and then from slim partridge pickin’s in Lake Effect Blizzard country for several years, I determined to find a safer and more productive place where I’d be able to run my dog on birds in January and February. This explains how and why I wound up joining a pheasant release club.

It also explains why, shortly thereafter, I began looking for a way to cook up pheasants that didn’t plate up as dry as a tick on a Bravecto-ed dog. My wife and I tried all sorts of preparations. We soaked breasts in buttermilk. We found a butcher who would accept boneless breasts and mix with secret herbs and spices — read “schmaltz,” or chicken fat — to make Pheasant Sausage. I tried grinding pheasants on my own, with half a pound of bacon being my secret sauce. Most recently I diced the breasts, sautéed them with a generous half stick of butter, then buried them in a cheesy quesadilla. All these attempts were palatable but not exceptional.

After seeing a video on cleaning desert quail recently,

http://uplandjournal.ipbhost.com/topic/62010-quail-cleaning-video/?tab=comments#comment-1096913

I decided to try the same technique on a pheasant, with appropriate tweaks for the birds’ different sizes. In particular, I thought that cooking the pheasant whole, bones and all, might add some flavor. So I began dreaming up a brand-new low-and-slow crockpot recipe for pheasants. It so happened that while I was thinking this over, Matt A. — my wife’s niece’s husband from North Dakota — showed up for our family’s Thanksgiving holiday celebration. We fell to talking about cooking up pheasants, and Matt offered his family’s favored technique. It was darn close to what I had envisioned, and so with just a minor adjustment or two — my vision contained no Cream of Something soup — I gave my new recipe a try.

And it was terrific! I bet it’ll work great with a rabbit or a mallard as well. Your comments and suggestions are welcome and solicited. Without further prologue, here’s my Tender Crockpot Pheasant recipe.

Ingredients

1 onion, coarsely chopped

2 stalks celery, into 1/4” dice

3 carrots, peeled and sliced on a bias into 1/8” coins

2 medium potatoes, unpeeled, and cut into 1/2” dice

2 large garlic cloves, smashed

1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms, rehydrated and diced

1 pkg. onion soup mix

2 healthy dashes soy sauce (don’t doubt me)
a sprig or two of thyme
2 Bay leaves
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
2 whole cloves
1 squirt @ anchovy- and tomato-paste

light splashes of a dry light white wine, as in Sauvignon Blanc

********************************************

3 strips of bacon, cut in half

1 rooster pheasant, skinned and eviscerated (a quite naked bird ;-)

********************************************

1+ tbsp. cornstarch and cold water slurry

Technique

1. Skin and eviscerate the pheasant so it looks like a naked Perdue roaster;

2. Cut and put into the crockpot the first 9 ingredients;

3. Put the rooster on top of your vegetable pile. Drape the 6 half-strips over the pheasant’s breast and legs;

4. Cover the crockpot and set on low for 8 hours;

5. At 7 hours (or 15 minutes less to allow for cooling time), remove the pheasant and pull the best meat off the breast and legs. Reintroduce the “pulled pheasant” into the crockpot. Reserve the bacon and less pleasing looking hunks of meat for the doggie who got you the pheasant;

6. With about 30 minutes to go, mix a hearty soupspoon of corn starch and a bit of cold water in a mixing bowl. When smooth, introduce back into the crockpot and give a good stir; and

7. Eat and be happy. A sprinkling of either Sriracha or, going the other way, some Pecorino Romano, may make you smile. Maybe have some hot biscuits with butter and the rest of the Sauv Blanc, too. God wants you to be happy.

This Neighborhood’s Going to the Dogs.

Actually, hunting dogs will very soon be gone from this emerging neighborhood.

I’ve been hunting on a particular piece of ground since shortly after I was married in 1978. In the 1980s, I hunted rabbits there behind my first dog beagle Jupp. Since 1994, I’ve hunted woodcock there behind flushing spaniels. One day last fall while woodcocking behind Gordie, I noticed earth moving equipment on the far side of our best hunting spots. It has not taken the developers long to bring the land to this point:

Now I have no legitimate *right* to bitch about this. First and last, I’ve never owned this land. Its owners heretofore had simply benignly neglected those of us geezers who still head out in the autumn with dog and gun hoping to bag maybe a bird or two. Further, the road in the picture, and the lots that will spring off it at 90°, is on land I haven’t hunted in years, as it’s too close to older houses that have always been sited along the main road. But the end of this road, very near a tiny flow sometimes glorified as a “creek,” will necessarily move my hunting areas 500’ back from some really good, and historically precious, thickets. So, although I have no legal basis to complain, still I’m bummed.

Best Woodcock Hunting Dates in Western New York in the Last 25 Years

After this year’s woodcock hunting started slowly, I decided to seek some historical perspective by checking the log I’ve faithfully kept since 1993, the year I started hunting birds instead of bunnies. All the woodcock counted are from the single ZIPcode that is my home hunting ground.

“Slow hunting” to me means small numbers of birds flushed rather than a low number of birds killed. There’s lots of reasons why the number of birds killed over one hunter’s dogs on a given date is not a perfect indicator of birds flushed. Local coverts become overgrown and thus tougher to gun over 25 years. When I am hunting alone, I am less likely to pull a trigger these days unless the bird will be reasonably easy for my dog to retrieve — did I mention that it’s crazy overgrown here? — and unless my shot charge is not directed at the new houses that have erupted like sores on my good old hunting grounds. I could go on, but there’s no need. My point remains that birds in bag are not a perfect indicator of birds flushed.

But since birds in bag is the only data I’ve kept, I’m going to run with it while at the same time acknowledging its imperfection.

When I looked at the aggregated data, two things jumped out at me.

First, the median date for shooting my dogs’ woodcock here is October 22, which is exactly the median day of NY’s current 45-day season. This comes as a mild surprise to me, the halfway mathematical “precision” notwithstanding. I would have bet the date would have been a bit later simply because shooting is easier after all the leaves have fallen.

Second, the days between 10/6 and 11/4 account for almost 94% of all the woodcock my dogs have flushed and retrieved. Starting next year, I’ll look for something better to pursue in the “tail” dates of the season. Maybe trout. Maybe pheasants. Heck, maybe golf if the temps are well into the 70s.

Habitat loss due to human encroachment, I fear, seriously threatens my next spaniel pup from doing as well locally as did my first two. Even so, I’ll keep looking for new spots that may become available to try.

Duck Season? Wabbit Season? Woodcock Season!

When I first started reading my mentor’s cast-off sporting magazines around 1960, I was as drawn to articles about casting dry flies to stream-bred trout as a brookie to a #16 Royal Coachman. Hunting “The King” in the North Woods was also high on my very short bucket list. Everything else was pretty much just OK… in a ham-and-egg sort of way.

I didn’t start the hunting part until Christmas, 1978, when my newly acquired father-in-law introduced me to hunting snowshoe hares behind beagles in the cedar swamps of his going-back farm north of Malone, NY. By Valentine’s Day, 1979, I had my first shotgun — a 20-gauge Mossberg 500 — and my first beagle, Jupp, who’s pictured at the right with some other old buddies.

Those first 10 years’ hunting were among the best in my life. Jupp and I chased snowshoes in the North Country, and cottontails when we were back home in western NY. But here’s the thing: even though Jupp was strictly a rabbit hound, we still shot more grouse then by accident than we have lately while in vigorous, dedicated pursuit.

After Nancy’s parents passed, we sold the family farm in 2004, and I’ve pretty much pursued partridge only on public land ever since. Specially here in western NY, public land birds are scarce because public land is not managed for birds. While I like to avoid politics here, it appears that our public lands are managed for spruce graveyards.

As it turns out, my upland hunting’s been saved by the woodcock, a bird often mentioned back in those 60s magazines simply as a sort of consolation prize. American woodcock — Scolopax Minor to some, the little russet feller to others, and timberdoodle to still others — just love to nest in and migrate through my home ZIP code. I’ve learned to cherish hunting this sporty little bird very close to home as The Main Event; grouse are neither present, nor needed. That he’s damned tasty medium rare out of the sauté pan doesn’t hurt his VIP resumé, either.

Maybe some future day I’ll dither into new thickets that are lousy with grouse. But until then I’m not going to spend much time hunting for grouse that aren’t there when for 45 sweet days I have this terrific seasonal bird right under my dog’s nose. So, joined with a few local friends who love li’l bec as much as I do, I offer a toast

 to our genial guest who makes every October delightful. Cheers!

Annual Youth Pheasant Hunt Is A Blast For Everyone

My shooting and release club will hold its annual Youth Day next Saturday. Boys and girls who have completed a hunter safety course are eligible to attend the 9-to-5 program that contains hour-long sessions in, among other things, skeet shooting, game laws and ethics, archery, turkey calling, dog training, and more. Then there is the very popular session where the kids have two pheasants — a rooster and a hen — planted for them so they can hunt them over a member’s “guide dog.” The idea is to recognize and therefore not shoot at the hen. This isn’t only educational, but also offers an opportunity to praise a kid for not shooting: what a good idea!

About 15 years ago, my AWS “Bean” was invited to be a guide dog; and as he didn’t drive, I was invited as well. It has each and every time been an unmitigated, if you’ll forgive the term, blast. The kids are receptive to coaching and extremely safety conscious; more so, for sure, than some adults I’ve introduced to bird hunting. It’s true that I happily donate a bit of my time so that the kids can have a great time outdoors. It’s probably more accurate to quip that the kids put in their time so that I can have a fabulous time working with them outdoors. They’ve all been polite, appreciative, safe, and eager to learn. Ditto the parents, relatives, and friends who’ve registered the kids and who accompany them on their assorted rounds. I relish my chance to work with all of them every year. I can’t wait for next week!

Here's some smiles from over the years.

These two, however, are my all-time favorites:

Gordie's Stats for 2015 NY Woodcock Season

NY's woodcock season this year ran for 45 days, from Oct. 1 to Nov. 14. Gordie, I, and frequently a friend or two, hunted 36 of those days. Hunts averaged, I’d estimate, 75 minutes. When I had guests, we worked a little longer; hunting alone on warm and dry early-season trips when birds were scarce, I’d cut Gordie's day short. We have the time and the temperament to prefer a short but daily hunt to, for example, big slogs on the weekend.

I keep woodcock logs for the NY DEC; for the Federal FWS; and for a bunch of (us) crazy old coots who subscribe to Grouse Tales. I’m using data from these three to mention 4 statistics from our 2015 woodcock outings.

1) Gordie averaged just under 3 flushes per hunt. If my 75 minute/hunt estimate is pretty close, that’s a flush every 25 minutes. I tried very hard not to count reflushes, and so Gordie’s total flush count would actually be higher than listed. But I’m pretty sure we moved a new bird about every half hour we hunted.

The best period for multiple flushes ran from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1. From the 21st to the 25th, Gordie flushed 4, 5, 4, 6, and 5 birds; successful shooters in this period were Rick J. and Dids. From Oct 30 to Nov. 1, Gordie flushed 4, 5, and 8 birds; successful shooters in this period were Joey K. and I;

2) Almost 50% of the birds Gordie flushed were shot at. This requires some explanation. I count for logging purposes dead birds by *dog*, not by gunner, as I’m a “dog man” first. So the shooting involved here was done not just by me but by my guests as well. I probably shot at fewer than 50% of the flushes I saw, as I don’t like to shoot at birds in very, very thick cover which offer a long, uncomfortable, and possibly fruitless chance for a retrieve. OTOH, my guests, many of whom are relative newbies, take shots such as they can;

3) Only 20% of the birds flushed were killed. This percentage acknowledges that we hunt in very, very thick places, and that newbies are often the gunners. I like to leave my gun at home when I take guests so that they’ll *know*, when a bird goes down, that they’re the successful shooter. But lots of stuck safeties and “oh, is *that* a woodcock?” tend to depress this statistic; and

4) About 40% of the birds shot at were killed (this follows algebraically from #2 and #3 above.) Given all that comes before, killing 40% of birds in tough places, with newbies often taking the shot, ain’t half bad.

All these numbers are fun for math geeks like me to fiddle with. But as the MasterCard commercial avers, to hunt 36 days with my 11 year old dog both alone and with friends new and old in familiar thickets is priceless. What a great year!

PS: The Shot of the Year was made today as the season ended. Gordie flushed a bird from a stand of dogwood and it offered an easy shot as it flew low to the ground down an open lane. Jim S. drew a bead, but then as Gordie came rushing out of the brush after the bird, he safely raised his gun and held fire. Good job there, Buddy.

Fishing in NY 2015

(Entries will be added chronologically below)

May 4 — Wyoming County

I finally got to wet a line this year. I waded into the creek and began working the very first run with a #16 Adams Wulff. On about the third cast I had a splashy rise and refusal from what appeared to be an average size fish hereabouts. I thought “Wow! It’s going to be a great day!” Naturally, that was the last fish I saw all day.

Nevertheless, it really was a great day. It started in fading sunshine and 79°F, a wonderful change from our frigid and snowy February. On the way home, I stopped at the ice cream shop in Sandusky and had the season’s first ice cream cone, one scoop each of Fool’s Gold

and of Caramel Praline Turtle.

I thought “Wow! It’s going to be a great year!”

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May 24 — Wyoming County

I fished the No-Kill section of w. NY’s best trout stream that runs parallel to Route 39. I was surprised that I had the whole stretch to myself on a holiday weekend, as there were no cars in the upstream DEC parking spot. After I got on the water, I understood why. Let’s just say it was a bit claustrophobic. If I ever go back there again, it will be after Pai Mei teaches me to punch a tight 30’ loop with an 8” fly rod.

The water was certainly nice, and I in fact had splashy refusals in each of the runs I had an opportunity to cast to. But there was too much bushwhacking and not enough fishing for my tastes.

On the drive home, I stopped at Mar Mac for a Byrne Dairy ice cream cone. Two scoops of Holy Cow restored my happy mood. 

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June 22 — Cattaraugus County

Today I fished a favorite stream near Delavan for the first time this year. Spring run-off always alters the stream bed, and last year's honey holes are often blown out before opening day.

And so it was for the first three quarters of the beat I fished. But what holes and runs had been destroyed downstream were replaced by really attractive runs upstream. In one of these new holes, I caught a chunky rainbow maybe 9” long on a #16 Adams Wulff. The splashy rise suggested a smaller fish, but as I stripped in line to get him off the hook and released, he seemed to gain weight. What a fine fish! Of course, when I went to take his photo, the battery in my camera was dead. Rather than search my pack for the iPhone and risk losing him, I simply held him upstream in the current until he felt strong enough to fin his way back home. I googled for a fish that was close in size and color, just to post a fish pic rather than an ice cream cone’s.

In a new pool upstream from there, I had a splashy refusal from a trout that looked considerably bigger than the fish I released. No kidding. I’ll be back there again this summer.

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July 13 — Cattaraugus County

Today I went back to Cattaraugus County to the same stream where I’d had good luck last time. I knew I’d be fishing two different sections of the stream. Because I hadn’t tried my brand new GoPro yet, I elected not to baptize it on the longer stretch on which I started the day. Too bad. I caught 3 nice rainbows on a #18 Royal Wulff in the same pool where I’d caught a nice fish last time. Dang!

Another reason I didn’t wear the GoPro is that there’s a long march on the rural roadside from where I stop fishing back to the car. The locals thereabouts always wave and say Hi when they see the amusing geezer with his quaint fish pole wobble by. But that same guy, I feared, might get a warmer reception if he looked instead like some space alien. Think of that nerd kid in Sixteen Candles:

My second beat was shorter, and that’s where I strapped on the GoPro for its test run. I put it over my backwards baseball cap — hate that look… — and adjusted it as seemed about right in my reflection in the car’s rear window.

I was surprised at how easy the gizmo was to use. One click started the video camera; one click stopped it. Rinse and repeat. I wouldn’t know until I got home whether the camera was focused on The Action, or at the treetops, or at my feet. Turns out, no worries. Brainless, and thus perfect for me.

The attached vid shows, at a second or two from each endpoint, first a small “refusal” and then a really exciting refusal (I think the lens must be some sort of wide angle affair. That would explain why it’s so easy for the camera to record where you’re looking, but also why it makes the center of the action look small and far away).

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White Water Kayaking On Franklin County’s Salmon River Above Whippleville

I got an abrupt introduction to canoeing in 1965 when I attended the M-3 Minnesota Outward Bound School. I don’t know whether Outward Bound has softened its approach since then, but in 1965 we “campers” were given the full Zack Mayo.

By M-3’s end, we were all pretty fair hands with a Grumman, and I came away enjoying canoeing in water either flat or white. Running Class IIs with friends got me interested in upping the ante both in class and in craft. And so in 1980 I bought river running kayaks for Nancy and me. We next headed up to a “kanu camp” in Ontario to get a bit of instruction. The camp operators were quite good themselves at white watering, but hugely overly optimistic as judges of our slalom potential. Here’s a shot of our “training site.” We still don’t know how we got out of there alive.

In a triumph of hope over experience, Nancy and I tried kayaking again a month later in some gentle current on the Salmon River that flows north through Malone in Franklin County. We found the little bit of current along Park Street a little too much. The kayaks shortly thereafter became a Sawyer Cruiser.

My alert s-i-l Patsy found this link of some serious early spring kayaking on the Salmon straight down from Chasm Falls. These guys are good. Maybe crazy. Probably both.

The J. O. Ballard Mill in Malone, NY Produced Durable Plaid Cloth That Was "All Wool And A Yard Wide"

(This post first appeared on February 26, 2010 under the title "A Ballad Of Ballard Plaid." After my visit to the Franklin County Historical and Museum Society in September, 2014, I was able greatly to expand the article under its current title. Many thanks to Ms. Jean Goddard, Ms. Diane Bonenfant, and others who assembled Ballard items from the Society's collection and organized them for my inspection.)

My father in law Paul D., DVM gave me a pair of experienced “Malone pants” shortly after I married his lovely daughter Nancy in 1978. He told epic stories of the heroic cloth from which they were made, warm when wet and nearly bullet proof. The fabric was so thick and sturdy that when I brought the pants back to Buffalo for tailoring, it was difficult to find anyone who felt comfortable working with it.

“Malone pants” came from the Ballard Mill, located on the Salmon River in Malone, NY. Of particular interest to my father in law was Ballard’s local flock of sheep. He claimed that the long Malone winters made the wool extra special. I don’t recall Doc telling me whether he'd ever provided vet services to the Ballard flock. The last of those sheep were long gone by the time I arrived on the scene. What I've learned since about the Ballard mill follows.

The Man

Jay Olin Ballard was born in Mexico, NY on January 8, 1858. He settled in Malone, NY in 1887. In 1891, he opened his eponymous mill in partnership with his brother-in-law Col. William Skinner. After transferring operation of the mill to his nephew Robert Skinner, Mr. Ballard passed away in the first half of the 1930s.

Jay Olin Ballard

While Mr. Ballard insisted on making a quality product, he was also solicitous about his workers’ well-being. For example, he put on an annual 4th of July Field Day for his employees and their families on his mill’s grounds. The area in front of the mill was decorated with colored lights, and games were played in the afternoon, while a band played music for dancing in the evening. For those not interested in the games, there were fishing events held on the Salmon River. In this letter from the Franklin County Historical & Museum Society's collection, Mr. Ballard thanks an employee who’d shown that this concern was mutual:

The Plant

After his first woolen mill was unsuccessful, Mr. Ballard built another mill a bit upstream on the Salmon River on the site of a former sawmill. The building survives today as part of the Malone campus of North Country Community College.

Before the mill acquired a small generator, the mill produced electricity by damming the Salmon River.

Bobbins From The Malone Mill

Products

After Jay Ballard died, stock holder John Cantwell was able to purchase a controlling interest in the company. The Great Depression that hurt small businesses all across the country did not spare the Ballard mill. But with a loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the mill was able to reopen in 1936.

Hunters’ and heavy workmen’s clothes were Ballard’s biggest sellers.

"Malone Plaid"

Ballard also offered traditional plaids

For more images of Ballard clothing and 1920s advertisements, click on Vintage Haberdashers.

In addition to direct selling to the public, Ballard also customized orders for agencies and firms desiring high-quality woolen garments. When Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympics in 1932, the American ski teams’ uniforms were made at the Ballard mill.  In WWII, Ballard made a khaki material for the Army. A Government Inspector was sent to Malone to watch the entire operation of fabric making. Rolls of the khaki cloth had to be wrapped in a special paper for shipping.

The Conservation Department also bought its uniforms from Ballard. Grey in color, the uniforms were made in two weights of material.

A Ballard catalog

Even L.L. Bean purchased several Ballard items for his mail order business, first making sure that his Bean label and buttons were sewn into them.

A Ballard "Hunting Suit." Do the boots look vaguely familiar?

At the mill’s height, Ballard clothes were sold in 28 states and Alaska.

The Sheep

Ballard initially bought wool from Australia and New Zealand, and graded and washed it at the mill. Before long, however, the question arose whether the mill could use wool from locally raised sheep. Experimentation began on this project, and soon local farmers and the Ballard mill itself were raising sheep. At various times, Ballard’s sheep were kept on a farm located on the Limekiln Road in Malone.

None of my homework so far has provided any further information on the Ballard flock which so interested my father in law. Malone residents who wrote about the mill may have considered the sheep’s breed as unremarkable “common knowledge” and accordingly saw no need to record it or related information.

Sheep, however, had been extensively raised for wool in Vermont by the mid 1800s. Adirondack history is amply supplied with the names of Vermonters like Apollos "Paul" Smith who migrated westward to New York and did well. It would not be a reach to hypothesize that sheep that were doing well in Vermont might have arrived and thrived with their emigrant owners. The Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium in St. Johnsbury, Vermont wrote in 2003 that the development of Merino sheep breeding kept sheep farming important in the 1860s and 1870s. The Merino obtained a higher degree of perfection in northern New England than in any other section of the United States. The combination of breeding skill and climate brought out heavier wool characteristics that gave the breed an excellent reputation for superior wool. Merino sheep are also noted for their hardiness and herding instincts. Having a cleft lip allows these sheep to graze on just about everything. Poor, rocky soil like that found in northern New York therefore would have made fine grazing land for Merinos.

As this point, The Smart People would intone "clearly more research is needed." I prefer to fracture Johnny Cash's song and promise that I'll keep my eyes wide open all the time for any more information about the Ballard flock.

Denouement

The demand for heavy woolen items declined after WWII. Inexpensive woolen imports from recently rebuilt modern mills in Japan and Italy took some of Ballard’s business. Newly introduced light synthetic fabrics and a decline in numbers of American small farmers, lumberjacks, and assorted roughnecks contributed to a collapse in demand and the inevitable closing of the mill.

Johnson Woolen Mills bought Ballard’s copyrighted plaid after the Malone mill closed in the 1960s. “Malone plaid” or “Ballard plaid” is still available from the Vermont mill, although Ballard’s 100% wool fabric has been replaced with an 85% wool - 15% nylon blend. The Johnson website calls the pattern “Adirondack plaid.” L. L. Bean also offers this plaid in their "Maine Guide" Pants and "Maine Guide Zip-Front Jac-Shirt." While it's great that this plaid lives on in its blended version for contemporary consumers who may not be quite sure what "Malone cloth" is all about, the Cold Duck just blushes, and you and I exchange a knowing wink.

Don’t Give Me That Baloney! I Want Real Bolognese!

Living up here on the frozen tundra near Buffalo, NY, I am partial to recipes for “comfort food” to get us through the July 5-to-next-July 3 winter season. A long while back, I found a quick and easy recipe for “Spaghetti Bolognese” that we’ve served now and then. The recipe included, among other things, spaghetti and sour cream.

I recently stumbled upon an article about Pasta Bolognese from genuine gentlemen of Bologna. Its revelations consumed me with shame for serving a poor, domestic, “Family Circle” sort of Bolognese all these years. I think you’ll enjoy the entire article including, of course, the Bologna locals’ recipe.

When Nancy and I tried the Tagliatelle Bolognese as suggested, we were left just a bit flat. Some of the disappointment was due to short cuts I took in my preparation. So last night I resolved to give it another try, making changes and substitutions that might work better in our house. Here’s what I changed:

1) I took pains to mince the celery and carrots to almost 1/8” size this time;

2) Instead of using diced tomatoes, I used crushed tomatoes. This was a good move to improve plate appeal;

3) We had some leftover shiitake, cremini, and oyster mushrooms in the crisper. I recalled from last winter’s reading of Cook’s Illustrated “The Science of Good Cooking” that such toadstools contributed “umami,” or savory goodness to any dish. So I chopped them small and included them in the recipe. The chopped mushrooms did not visually stand out on the plate, but the sauce was happy they were there;

4) Instead of using ground beef, last night I used ground “pheasburger.” So tonight our sauce looked like this:

5) Although the article avers that Tagliatelle was sacred in Bologna, Nancy and I found that the wide long noodles did not pick up and hold sauce well. We have discovered this with several other saucy dishes as well. Last night we used a pasta that we find binds better with sauce: orecchiette. We were not disappointed.

Not only did this blend of ingredients have better plate appeal, it was also really tasty. Enjoy with a bottle of Chianti Classico Riserva!

Here’s my recipe for “pheasburger”:

4 lb. boneless pheasant breast

1 lb. bacon

3 or 4 large garlic cloves

1 generous handful of breadcrumbs

2 eggs

1/2 shot glass of salt

Run all ingredients through a meat grinder and freeze in 1 lb. bags.